Developing Worship Leaders: Essential Fundamentals for Success - Part 1 | Reimagining Worship Guide

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Transcript

You too. Yo. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. January 2024. We are rolling, kicking this year off. Strong, welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Reimagining Worship podcast. It's a privilege, a privilege for me to be able to be here and it's an honor for you to check this page out, whether you're listening on a podcast or watching this on youtube.

If you're on youtube, I see you. Good to see you. Good to see you if this is your first time here to reimagine the worship. I wish you want to communicate. What reimagine of worship is. The mission of reimagining worship is to foster an environment that inspires and empowers creatives within the church, celebrating their unique gifts, and harnessing their talents to enhance worship experiences.

We're committed to nurturing a community that values creativity as an expression of faith, fostering connection and promoting a deeper relationship with Jesus. That's what we exist to do. So I'm glad that you're here. I'm excited about this year and kind of what is planned for this year and the things that have already happened and the things that are going to happen.

So, I kind of want to dive right in this year. We're starting with a brand new thing. If this is like I said, if it's your first time, check out the first few seasons we have, I have a bunch of friends on and other worship leaders from around the country. Then II I kinda moved into what it looks like to care for creatives, burnt out creatives. Shout out to healthy creatives.

This is my brand. Healthy creatives is the brand. But that was last year and this year I'm kicking off something brand new. A little bit of housekeeping before we dive in. First off. I want to invite you to check out the links will be all below but Trevor chin.com or reimagining worship.org You can hop on there and you'll get to my website with a bunch of resources.

There's a, there's a lot, there's a lot on there and I'm, that's gonna be like there is a place where I continue to put things, everything that I developed worked through, think through is going there. There's a bunch, a bunch, a bunch of free resources and then for only $20 for $20 for $20. So you can continue to support the ministry support what's going on for $20 you get an all access pass and that gives access to all of my trainings.

Right now, II, I have maybe 67 hours of video on there of just all of this stuff, like healthy creative stuff. We did a conference in October that's on there. We did a conference in September that's on there. I'm doing a conference in January that will be on there after the 27th. So there's so much on there. And then if you want to rock out with the healthy Creative t-shirt that's coming soon too.

So I wanna invite you to do that. All that will be on the site at Trevor chin.com. All the links are below. But I just wanna dive in, let's just get rolling this year. As we think through worship specifically, I know we did a lot of creative stuff and soul care for creatives and everything like that last year. But this year I wanna work through one of the big topics that I've been talking with a lot of people about.

Like, I think the, the primary question is like, hey, Trevor, you have anybody that can come lead worship. Hey, Trevor, you have, I'm, I'm looking for a worship leader. Hey, Trev, I'm looking for a creative director or a music director or worship, whatever the case may be. This is my regular weekly conversation. I've had, I've had these conversations way too often.

Part of that is there was just, I mean, there's a lack, there's there's been transition or everyone is booked up. Part of that is the amount of new churches that are sprouting up that are happening. Part of that is the amount of burnout worship leaders and creatives have dealt with over the last few years, especially through COVID. And then a big, another really, really big part in my humble estimation is the lack of development in discipleship and care for the for those people.

It's, it, it's, it happens. You, you, you, you stop working through developing people and then the people that you want to see develop are not being developed. So this year, this podcast, this season, I'm working through a eco right now and it's gonna be all here for you. I'm gonna expand it a little bit more to make an actual course, but I'm gonna work through this course with y'all here on youtube or on the podcast.

However, you listen, if you want, if you're listening, check out, I don't know what my Instagram thing is, but check out reimagine the worship podcast on Instagram on youtube rather. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's, it's at teaching creates. Alright. That's enough self plugs. But this year, this podcast is gonna be how to not find but develop your next worship leader.

This podcast is for pastors who who, who have a shepherding heart that want to see development happen. This is for existing worship leaders who are looking to develop someone else. These are for people that desire to be a worship leader that but don't know, step one for that. All of those folks, this is like the one on one from Roder to tutor of how to develop your next worship leader.

They're not gonna be available if we don't develop them. Like I'll just, I'll, I'll just put that like that, like simply put, we have to do the work of development. So let's go ahead and dive right in the first chapter or the first idea is I call it laying the first stone. These are, these are just some of the, the foundations of a, of a worship leader.

What it means to be a worship leader. Grasping the, the ideas of music, grasping the ideas of of, of, of understanding the role like and, you know, for the time's sake, let me start there just understanding the role of what a worship leader is. the capacity of a worship leader, the demand of a worship leader. The consistency of a worship leader is 52 weeks and 52 Sundays in a year.

And those Sundays, you have some good Fridays sprinkled in, you have some special events sprinkled in, you have some worship nights sprinkled in. There's a lot going on. A typical church does about 65 services, 65 to 75 services a year if they're only running one service, one service on, on Sundays. If you're just doing like an 11 o'clock service, there's typically like 65 to 75 services a year from worship nights, baptisms, prayer nights, all that kind of stuff.

So, understanding the role, understanding what is being asked of you. I'll also add, that's a lot of Sundays, that's a lot of events and services to be able to sing and lead and care and do all that kind of stuff. That's why. And I argue this all the time, like if you're a worship leader currently, that is like you're a sole worship leader that is just kind of in the thick of it yourself.

And you're doing all 65 of those services. This w this podcast is for you. Let's work to develop the next one. The next word will be someone else that can take up some of these spaces and I don't wanna get too ahead of myself, but that doesn't even mean get Jimmy who's 12 years old that could play guitar a little bit and put him up on Sunday. No, let's find different spaces for him to be able to grow, get reps outside of just a Sunday morning situation.

That's children's church, that's baptism, Sundays. That's prayer nights, little things like that, but neither here nor there understanding the role. We like think through the, and we're gonna talk through all of this. This is like 1314 parts, but the emotional necessity, the spiritual component, the ethical facets of worship. The, the role setting the stage onboarding people, all of these things, we're gonna talk through all of these things we'll talk through.

So, we want to dive right in. First off, first off, first off again, I told you we're starting from the first stone, the first brick, the first idea around developing your, your next worship leader is understanding basic music theory anti climactic. I understand we'll get there. Like if, if you're much more advanced, we'll get there eventually.

understanding basic music theory, like the, the necessity of understanding of how music works of keys of, of what key the song is in how the song is structured. The, the the to lead in worship is to communicate the language of music. Thus, a solid grasp of music theory is indispensable. So you want to think through what it looks like just to have basic music theory.

If you, if you're unfamiliar with that, find a music teacher, get a find a youtube course, find a master, what's, what's the thing called master class type thing to just understand some basic music theory because you're gonna, you're gonna need to communicate the same basic music theory to your, to your team or at worst, understand it for yourself to be able to lead that's the first big idea.

The second big idea is mastering an instrument. mastering an instrument is important if you desire to be a worship leader that, that also can, can lead a band, I would argue that it's good to find an instrument that you're comfortable with. That you can begin to do the work of mastering piano and guitar would be the primary two that I would, that would, I would point towards depending on your context.

Either one can work very, very well, but find an instrument that you can work through a worship leader must not only know their music but the instrument as well, whether it's piano, guitar or your own voice. dive into the ideas, the fundamentals, the practice routines. What's, what does a practice routine look like? What are you practicing?

Are you just preparing for Sunday or are you practicing? some of the, some of the background stuff, easy thing with this is find a music teacher, find a music teacher shameless plug. My wife and I have a music school, melissus.com and it's all online and we're looking to get in person space in January or February. So, hey, if you're looking for a music teacher, we have that available as well.

But that was a shameless plug. Shout out to my wife. But think through the music, think through the instrument that, that, that you want to work through and even if it is just your voice like that leads to the second idea like vocal techniques. The voices are powerful, the voice is a powerful instrument. Your voice is good for worship leading.

This is something that you're going to need. in one of these services that we're talking about and it's Sunday morning, you're going to need to learn how to use your voice and to communicate. and with pitch with clarity, with intentionality, with tonality and all of that kind of stuff. Like I said, this is, this is gonna be, this is, this is one on one stuff and I'm kinda just briefly talking through all the one on one stuff.

But vocal technique is super super important. not only is vocal technique important, vocal health is super important. If you look on my on a earlier video, my wife is doing a full class of like how to care for your voice, how to care for your voice the night before, how to care for your voice, after you sing, how to care for your voice the morning of healthy, healthy warm ups that you can do.

Like all these things are super important. because you, especially if you're singing more than two songs back to back it, you'll get ho you'll crack voice exhaustion, all that kind of stuff. So proper voice technique is super, super, super important. Another thing as we just continue to talk through the basics is song selection and arrangement, song selection and arrangement.

The musical theory. The, the, the basics of music theory and the basics of, of mastering your instrument. Well, the basics of mastering is, you know, but, but, but the, the instrumentation as well as the vocal ability, as well as the basics to music theory are all important as we talk through arrangement. When we think through arrangement, this is what songs are being picked.

What songs are you listening to? What songs are you selecting to sing on Sunday morning? Some songs are great for private worship but not all songs are good for corporate worship. I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make that playing some, like I wanna argue, all songs are good for private worship but not all songs are good for corporate worship. The, the, the purpose of the gather, the gathering, the purpose.

When we gather together, we sing songs collectively together as a local church as a body, as one. We want to be able to sing songs that even when we think through the language in the songs, the Wes instead of the eyes, the USS instead of the me's just language is important. As we think through the actual song selection, I have a full course on, on how to pick a song selection.

And then like, it's on my website, there's even a rubric of like, yo, is this song Good For Sunday Morning. Is this song Good for corporate worship? And it's kind of like a kind of a step by step guide to help you process through that idea. But not only is the song selection important, the arrangement is important. We're thinking through what keys are we singing in?

keys that are easy for men versus keys, keys that are easy for women and what keys work? Well, for both, that's super important. How are we gonna structure the song? How many times are we gonna sing this chorus before it gets too redundant? How many times are we gonna sing? Give me loop this bridge before it gets super boring. How should we sing this more than once?

So, we don't, so we don't miss this moment or we don't miss this. What's being communicated. Are there too many, all of these things? All of these things are extremely, extremely, extremely important as we think through song selection and arranging said songs. pray about this. Look through even your the, the pastor's the sermon matrix to see kind of what is being preached this quarter or this month or this year, depending on how your church does it.

So you can even align with what's going on, whether it be about faith or hope or finance whatever the case may be. So you can pick appropriate songs that can match with those things. Just a few more and like I said, I wanna land this plane. These are intended, let me just clarify. These are intended to be brief, introductory and I like to keep these podcasts under 15 minutes if possible.

I don't know where I'm at right now in terms of time, but in a perfect world, I like to keep them under 15 minutes just so they're like easier to grasp bite size pieces. So song selection and arrangement is super, super important, choosing the right song is crucial to leading effective worship. So secondly, or second to lastly leading practice sessions, these opportunities, these, well, these rehearsal opportunities are where your leadership begins to sprout.

There's a quote that if you're a leader with no one following you, you're just taking a walk. I like that quote. But but these rehearsals are opportunities for you to be able to lead. This is where you show the efficiency and all those other characters, the characters that communicated before. These rehearsals should be productive. They should be planned, they should be thought out.

You should be able to create an environment of care of joy of excitement and make sure that you spend the time to, to prepare for these. So you can be in and out in a timely manner. I'm not saying rush these things, but honor people's time. If you're gonna have a rehearsal and everybody get there and nobody know the music you include it. And now we're spending the bigger part of rehearsal of trying to learn this music, then we've wasted everybody's time and we've honestly wasted the

time of the people who spent the time throughout the week. So these practice sessions, rehearsals are not time to learn the music or think through the music or think through the arrangement, all this needs to be done throughout the week, which is why oftentimes like it's good to have those rehearsals towards the end of the week or just on Thursday nights, Thursday night rehearsal gives enough time, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to think through the songs, pray through the

songs, see if they line up, see if they add up to what's going on in our congregation in our context, whatever the case may be. And I'm gonna talk about that in a second. Arrange the songs. This is arrange the music. This is where the, we're gonna lead from this song and go into this song. All of that. All of that happens on Monday through Wednesday.

When we come to rehearsal on Thursday, it is about getting those, all those individual pieces together as one to blend well together. Rehearsal is about blending, not learning. Rehearsal is about a more creative expression, not learning. Hey, let's add this. I think this will sound great if we did this, that happens at rehearsal. Not how the song go.

Now, I'm guilty of this in a lot of ways. Got a lot going on, but there's more absent mindedness less, I don't prepare for the music, but that's neither here nor there. But leading these leading these songs leading these rehearsals is not just about perfecting the music or just blending. This is the opportunity for care. This is treat rehearsals like you're like a mini service.

This is where community is established. This is where worship actually happens. Oftentimes the worship for the worship team happens in rehearsal over and above a Sunday morning. We're leading yes on Sunday morning, but like the just the time to be able to sit and soak no timers, no lyric screens, no expectations like, yeah, we're just here listening to the music, we're playing the music, we're singing the music, we're just soaking in the music and spend this time to pray, spend

this time to develop community. If at all possible get some chips, some water and some tea just to be able to break some bread even on a tight budget, but utilize this time to really honestly and authentically care for your team. I try to like, I want to encourage multiple spaces or times to be able to do that because the worship team specifically is one of those teams that is on a regular cycle every 6, 6.5 days is time again.

There's four or five songs on a Sunday. There's a rehearsal, there's extra services like it's, it's, and I don't like to use the word, but it's a rat race in a lot of ways. It's just, it's a, it's a hamster. It's a, it, it can be a hamster wheel. One of the things that stops the hamster wheel of Sunday to Sunday worship is actually care and community in the actual, in your actual team.

Spend the time, ask questions. What are you praying for in this season? What do you believe in God for in this season? How can I pray for you in this season? How is life going? What do you have going on in your personal life that I can come support or encourage all of these things can happen in rehearsal? So don't just l A rehearsal to like, all right, we got these songs tight.

All right. I'll see y'all on Sunday. No, no, no one wants to do that. No one's going to, no one is going to roll with you for an extended period of time just on a regular rat race of what you're singing and we develop some doggone community care for your team. This is where a lot of that Time comes in, at least to my to another idea. The worship leader is a shepherd.

The worship leader is a shepherd. It is your opportunity and responsibility to shepherd your team, to care for your team, to care for those who are around you. But not only that, we're called to Shepherd the moment on Sunday morning, we're called to Shepherd the congregation as we're singing, as we're leading, as we're praying as we're doing all of these things like we are shepherding these moments.

I talk about this a lot in, in some of my conference settings, but like I, I'll just briefly communicate it here. Like music in and of itself is an emotional essence. Like it's emotional music evokes emotion, period when you're happy. I can, I can, I can give all the emotions and you can think of a song that, that correlates to him like music is like music does that that's why we don't watch movies without no gim me music around it because it, it can guide and lead where we want the

emotional responses to be, that being said, be intentional to steward those moments. Well, steward the moments that you are given the opportunity to steward in a in, in a worship leading context. Well, what needs to be said, what doesn't need to be said? What verse can be read, spoken over the people, what silence should happen. There's so many different things that you can be intentional with in those moments as you develop these arrangements, as you develop these songs as you

pick the songs, like find out what it looks like to shepherd these moments. And then even on Sunday morning, you like, spend the time to shepherd your team even then, hey, listen, y'all, we're about to walk into battle like we all like, and that's like not to use a bunch of military language but like, like that's why we need commanders. Like we need people that are like hype, hype men.

If you will like, yo, it's time to go. We're about to go in. We're about to leave this room and leave this space and we're gonna get on the stage and we're gonna get on these instruments and on these microphones and we are have the opportunity to lead this church and to worship. Folk had a hellacious week folk that had a hellacious month folk got a lot going on in their life and oftentimes folk are coming to service for a doone breakthrough.

These worship moments are the opportunities that we can speak truth into them, speak the gospel into them, singing over them. I love, I love all the times when you just see David just worshiping and, and, and, and, and, and, and caring for the king and even in those ways like the, those are the moments that we get to just spend with Jesus, not only with for ourselves, but we get to be the lead worshipers as we are worshiping ourselves.

And shepherding the congregation through that same worship. So the worship leader is a shepherd. So we need to work through shepherd in those moments. But not only that, this is the last thing and the last thing only for this section, the worship leader is a cultural exige. Now, let me say it again. The worship leader's responsibility is to exige the culture of the community that your church sits in and the church itself, one of the ways to be a good shepherd is to know the people who

you are shepherding. Ask those questions. Find out what's going on. What are the pain points? All right, I'm gonna say this. I wasn't going to say it but I'm now gonna say it. Listen most of the music that we listen to on the radio is the music that we play on Sunday mornings. Why is familiar? We understand it. We know it beautiful but pending the context that you're in.

The songs that are written on the radio are written for a certain demographic or a certain context. It's a market, it's a market. These are markets, this is an industry. Christian music like it or not, is an industry and there is a target market or a target demographic that this industry is going after nothing. I'm not saying it's bad, horrible or whatever case may be.

I'm not even saying that to be the case. What I'm saying is, is that market, your church sometimes it might be, sometimes it might not be, but that's why we need to do the intentional work of understanding who our church is, who's in those seats that were, who's in the seats of the people that were leading, who's there, who's not there? Because everything they're saying on the radio was not meant for your church.

Even if it's meant for a church, it might not be meant for your church. We need to be intentional to execute the context around us. What's going on with the people that are sitting in the pews? What's going on in the cultural moment that we're in? if we're going through an extremely difficult time, don't just get up there and sing a whole bunch of happy, happy, happy joy, joy songs.

What does it look like to lament? What does it look like to pray? What is it like to like Lord? Like the Lord is my shepherd. He always guides me like, like what is like, what verses are you gonna speak? What, what, what what, what, what songs are you gonna be like? Yo, all of this is super, super, super important. Be intentional with the moment.

Be in intentional with your context, be intentional with your city demographic. Be intentional with the people that are in the doone pews because these are the moments that were given to shepherd, to care, to love, to lead, knowing who's in there knowing all that is, is, is super, super, super important. So the reason why shepherding is important because, because learning to execute your context comes from shepherding and knowing the people who are in your congregation.

So listen, family. I hope that was encouraging. I hope that was helpful. If so like, like share, subscribe, tell a friend to tell a friend, we're gonna be at it again. I'm gonna say we'll see you again next week. Let's hope I'm consistent enough to be able to be here next week. I'm just joking, but I'm, but my goal is to be able to do one of these a weeks just as we as we prepare for this new year, like be and being intentional about shepherding and developing this next generation of

worship leaders. Find it, find, find a, find a, find a young, a young un 1213, 14, someone that's willing someone that's willing to, to, to grow and develop that you can care for in shepard. Just a 12th story like that was my, that was my background and a lot of people that are in my seat right now have that same story. There was someone that came along when they was 1415 year old invested in them, gave them music lessons, gave them coaching, gave them discipleship, shared a gossip with

them, gave them leadership opportunities, gave them opportunities to lead a team, then allow, then help them find a space to be a leader on a regular basis, like find, find someone that you can do that same thing for. It's our responsibility to be able to do that because it was done for us. And I don't know what happened. But at some point in time, all of that development time then stopped and then there was a gig culture that happened and everyone started taking gigs and then

churches started pimping out musicians. That's a whole another story for another day. But churches were started pimping out musicians and then stealing musicians for $25 extra Sunday. And then it turned into this church musician context and there's a lack of discipleship, there's a lack of care, there's a lack of investment, there's a lack of, of, of, of, of, of gospel truth.

And I'm just like, and now we're here now, we're here and everyone's saying I ain't gotta worship it. I ain gotta worship it. I ain gotta worship it because we stopped developing. We stopped caring, we stopped supporting, we stopped investing. I used to go to guitar center on Saturday mornings and everyone and a mama was there playing keys, dude was pastor was there.

My pastor was there like, yo, what's up connecting with people, meeting people, man? How can I care? Like, yo, man, my pastor bought my first two keyboards. Like, what are we talking about? Like find it? It's our job now for the folks who are, I mean, who are in this seat right here? Who got a little gray in your beard or gray in your hair? It's time to find someone that you can pour into, develop care for shepherd, encourage be frustrated with, then be frustrated with you.

Mess up, fix it, mess up again, fix it. but really spend the time because the, the, the, the, the church, the local church needs it, it needs it. We're not gonna be able to do this forever. We can't, we can't. So listen, this is episode one, chapter one. Don't know what season I'm on. But hey, listen, thanks for checking out the reimagining worship podcast.

Next week, we're gonna talk a little bit through cultivating the leader, the worship leader's heart, we're gonna talk through spiritual preparation, all that kind of stuff. And I'll even say lastly, you know what? It was a bad intro, a bad ending because I'm gonna just say one more thing if you stayed on this is like Avengers because you can, you know, anyways, spiritual preparation is extremely important as a baseline in a ground level for the dog on worship.

We're gonna talk a lot more about this in in part two, but the importance of spiritual readiness, all of those things that we talked about before some of the basics are cool, but like shepherding, ex there's song selection arrangements, caring for you to like all those come with a spiritual preparation or a spiritual readiness that it takes. How, what's your devo, what's, what's this potential worship leader's devotion life look like?

What does his prayer time look like? What is his own worship time look like? What is their own worship time look like? I should say. So we're gonna talk heavily about this next week. But for now, don't forget, check out Trevor chin.com or reimagine worship.org. And all of our information is gonna be on. You can follow me on Instagram at teaching TCH Inc Reates until next time.